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Prot DPS/PVP - Protribution Guide - Updated 3.3!
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Post by
Squishalot
Hi guys,
It seems that the "Protribution" spec, originally proposed by failblog, has started to gather some steam in terms of interest, and there have been a couple of calls for a sticky or guide generally on what to do to make it work.
Firstly,
here is the original thread relating to Protribution
, along with a lot of the modelling behind the testing. Credit goes to failblog for coming up with the idea, and big, big props to svirve for helping make it something more than just another pretty snowflake =)
Talent Spec
There are basically only a few 'must spec' talents. The rest is pretty much up to you, depending on what sort of game you like to play.
For general world PvP or BGs,
use this build
. It contains all your necessary damage dealing talents, gives you Glyph of Salvation for some damage mitigation, and spec's into Seal of Command for more flexibility.
For arena, you might want to consider
this build
. We take points out of Reckoning, and drop them into Spiritual Attunement (because extra mana recovery is good) and Divine Sacrifice / Divine Guardian, for extra team mitigation and a stronger Sacred Shield. DSac is also useful as an extra anti-CC tool.
If you wanted to use this spec for PvE (don't say we didn't warn you...),
try this build
. This provides you with all the key offensive talents, 2 points in SA for better mana recovery. Don't shield yourself, because you'll need all the mana you can get.
Rotation
The basic Prot Tankadin rotation is a 9-6 rotation, using Holy Shield, Consecrate and Judgement on 9s, and alternating Hammer of the Righteous and Shield of Righteousness on 6s.
As this is now primarily a PvP spec, there is no fixed rotation. For PvP purposes, you would generally want to keep Holy Shield up as often as possible. Your burst abilities are Avenger's Shield, Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous. Remember to have your finger on Hammer of Wrath once they've been knocked down.
Spell priority:
(low gear) Shield of Righteousness -> Hammer of Wrath -> Hammer of the Righteous -> Judgement
(high gear) Shield of Righteousness -> Hammer of the Righteous -> Hammer of Wrath -> Judgement
Consecration is a mana hog. There are no good times to use it unless:
1) You're scouting for stealthed Rogues and Druids;
2) You're being attacked by 5+ people and are about to die; or
3) You're in front of a siege engine or other such slow war machine that will stay in the AoE for a long period of time.
Seal Choice
In a one-on-one straight up fight, consider whether you're going to be able to burst them down quickly. If so, you would want to use Seal of Righteousness. For a prolonged fight, none of your stuns will be broken due to damage, so feel free to use Seal of Vengeance (if you can keep 5 stacks on your target).
In BGs, you don't really care what you're targeting, you just want to do as much carnage as possible. Seal of Command is the way to go.
In Arena, it really depends on your partner. If you can't split your opponents up, then Seal of Righteousness to avoid breaking CC. If you're working with a partner who doesn't use CC much, then Seal of Command or Seal of Vengeance might be better. It's all about flexibility and adapting to the situation.
Post by
Squishalot
Gearing Priority
Broadly speaking, you want to be at the BV soft cap, minimum of 5% hit so your nukes don't miss, then stack Strength til no end.
Generally speaking, Ret gear is better than Prot gear, because you're not wasting valuable item points on defence/avoidance stuff.
Weapon: Low speed (i.e. high swing time, eg, 2.5sec) melee DPS one-hander. Ideally something with Str, but seeing as they're not very common, something with plenty of AP will do. Slower weapon speed helps your Seal of Command / Vengeance damage.
Trinkets: Depends on whether you're willing to go all out for the ultimate nuke. Anything that gives you bonuses to Str or AP are good.
Gemming:
Strength
. In general, follow Retribution gemming guidelines.
I'll have a new profile up soon.
Professions
Essentially, you want professions that are well suited to PvP. Engineering gives you extra burst and the ability to close in on targets faster. Mining is a money spinner and gives you extra health to survive. Skinning gives you extra crit. Never-ending Mana pots by Alchemists are always useful, as this spec is very mana hungry. Jewelcrafting gems are awesome.
Engineering / Jewelcrafting is probably the most balanced way to go for general PvP work. But for Arena, to min/max, Blacksmithing / Jewelcrafting for the extra sockets and specialty gems, as usual.
Frequently Asked Comments
"Is this better than Retribution?"
It's *different* from Retribution. You bring a different set of abilities to the table as a Protribution Pally - a faster CD on your stun, a silence (depending on how you spec), and oodles of survivability, because you still have a lot of damage mitigation and effective health talents.
N.B. The resurrection component of Ardent Defender will proc if you have any items with Defense Rating. So in searching for BV, you should pick something that gives you Defense too, because that allows you to survive 'that one last hit'.
"Can I level with this build?"
It's probably not a great levelling build, since it relies very heavily on Shield of Righteousness, which you don't get until Level 75. But it'll still be faster than Holy.
"Is this build viable?"
Viable in what sense? Can you PvE DPS with it? Not really. Changes to Prot Paladins have resulted in it being less effective than it was previously.
Can you PvP DPS with it? Yes - Shield of Righteousness and Glyphed Avenger's Shield will wipe the floor with most casters quicksmart. People think that Ret pallies have burst, they haven't seen anything yet. Especially since you can cast Avenger's Shield as you close. And picking talents to get that 30 second stun CD is just downright rude. Not to mention the whole 30% damage reduction at 35% health and less...
"Can I gank with this build?"
One of the big problems with a traditional Retribution build is that your only opening ranged attack is Exorcism - meaning you need to be stationary, and either at close range to follow it up with another attack, or be up against low level targets so that you can use Hammer of Wrath. Most caster builds have this problem as well - all the high damage attacks have casting times, making them useless against flyers.
The advantage of the Protribution spec is that you can do very significant damage at range if you're well geared. A Glyphed Avenger's Shield can one-shot anyone below 60, and combined with Hammer of Wrath, will allow you to two-shot most flyers up to 70, while you bubble-drop safely down to the ground. Against ground targets, you can open with Exorcism, Avenger's Shield and Hammer of Wrath to take down targets up to about 73-75 from range.
Can you have fun with it? Yes. And isn't that what the game's about?
Post by
Squishalot
Frequently Made Comments
"Prot spec is for tanking, you noob! L2play!"
You'll encounter this a lot. Many people don't know how to think outside the box. Laugh, and smash them in the face with a Glyphed Avenging Shield to shut them up.
No, really.
"Paladin DPS needs to have a big slow two-hander. You don't do as much damage with a shield!"
Not quite. Retribution Paladin DPS needs to have a big slow two-hander. Protribution Paladin DPS needs you to have a big slow one-hander, for bigger Seal of Command / Vengeance hits, and a big hefty shield for your Shield of Righteousness. Some people don't actually realise this.
"OMGWTF, you're not hit capped!"
This will be another misconception you encounter if you're using this spec for PvE, since generally, Ret Paladins are encouraged to get their 8% extra hit, before moving on to Strength. But the numbers suggest that Protribution Paladins get more out of Strength early on in life, so that's what you should be working on first.
"OMGWTF, you're not def capped!"
You'll probably encounter this a lot too, until people realise that you're not the tank. Then they'll go back to one of the other FMCs.
Post by
BristolUTD
Good one. I may try this but getting gear is going to be a pain. There are going to be tanks who say: You aint tanking you dont get that ... And dps who say: You are tank spec you dont get that too...
But maybe it will cach on :)
Post by
322291
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
de4dwing
so, do you use ret gear with loadsa str or tanking gear for this specc:)?
Post by
laitaro
I modified this specc alittle for PvPing and it's fun as hell =)
my gear is quite sucky, but i still see 7.5k crits on AS :p
I have a question too, would it be viable to switch out one of the ret pieces for a int heavy holy piece so divine plea gives more mana, thus making the mana problems i see sometimes dissapear?
btw, just got 3 allys on me (rogue,rogue,paladin i think) killed both of the rogues, and then died with paladin on half hp =D
Post by
Squishalot
de4dwing - I'd presume Ret gear? Otherwise you're wasting item points on defence based stats, when you could be getting things like Crit rating, Hit rating, extra AP...
laitaro - Do you mind posting what spec you're using? In terms of swapping the pieces, look at how much taking a Holy piece will gimp your damage. Consider using a Glyph of ShoR, rather than Glyph of Judgement, since Judgement doesn't do that much damage in the first place, the mana savings might be better.
Post by
laitaro
here is my armory
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kor%27gall&n=Laitaro
It's focused on PvP so that's why i have pvp talents
Post by
Squishalot
Yep, that looks ideal. You're losing 2% crit and 10% Exo damage, in exchange for the extra 20sec stun CD, and you're losing 2% crit for the 15% run speed. That doesn't seem too bad a swap. I'll include your spec as an example of a PvP (since the first is more geared towards PvE with talents like Divine Sacrifice).
Post by
laitaro
It seems that protribution really owns in battlegrounds, finished an AV with 864k dmg done (100k more then the second on dmg) 20 killing blows and 9 deaths (charging into 15 alliance is not very smart :p )
I tried doing some arenas with my mage buddy and it went pretty well. I had to watch my mana tho' , ran out of it in one game and couldn't do anything to get it back : / . But it's really nice when you get lucky and do a 7.5k AS crit followed by a 6k ShoR crit =)
Post by
324117
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
laitaro
if you want to be able to tank and dps with the same spec, you'd have to have a threat prot build.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=000000000000000000000000000532003502014231133331232105230030200300000000000000
the last two points go either into JotJ, or into Sanctity of Battle if you are 100% sure someone else can slow down the attack speed of the boss. There might be some mana issues because we have deflection instead of benediction and a minor dps loss for not taking reckoning.
Getting a +int heavy piece when dpsing could make up for the benediction loss since more mana means divine plea gets better, but lower dps alittle. I'm not a theorycrafter so i don't know if it's better to sacrifice some Str for mana so you don't go oom, or if it's better to be oom sometimes and do alot of damage when you aren't.
Post by
417848
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
324117
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
laitaro
yea, that specc would work, i left out PoJ since i don't really find that useful in pve. But it's different for everyone. I for one (in tank spec), have specced in holy down to improved lay on hands (i don't trust my healers ) =p
Post by
402319
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Great to hear the good feedback coming out of PvP!
Laitaro, if you're concerned about mana, glyph for mana efficiency instead, or ease off on the Consecration - use it every second rotation instead of every one. In a raid environment, remember that you're going to be hammered by Seal of Blood, as well as general raid-wide damage, and you'll get the mana from Spiritual Attunement back too, as well as Replenishment effects, potentially a Blessing of Wisdom/Mana Spring Totem... failblog's initial feedback was that in isolation, mana was a big issue, but in a raid environment, there were no worries at all.
Mana issues if you're using a more standard prot tanking build - not going to be an issue, because you'll get so much back from Spiritual Attunement.
In PvP, I guess it's more about whether you expect a prolonged fight that requires long-term mana recovery, or whether it's a 2v2 burst fight. If it's about burst, then you should probably be sticking to your Ret pieces and making sure you have the ability to burst when you need to.
Venolar, Armory is causing me troubles, but if you've got something akin to a cookie cutter Prot tanking spec, then there are a few issues:
1) You won't have the additional 10% Exo damage and the additional 2% Crit from Sanctity of Battle
2) You'll have even more mana issues because you won't have Benediction.
3) In a PvE DPS environment, you'll have wasted talent points on things like Improved Righteous Fury, when you could have an improved Divine Sacrifice for more raid utility.
4) You'll be glyphed incorrectly. HotR won't be useful long-term, most tanks don't glyph for Avenger's Shield (big reduction in DPS), and no tanks that I know of glyph for Exorcism (another reduction in DPS).
Just some thoughts - you can still DPS with a cookie cutter Prot spec, it just won't be as effective/useful, since so many points get spent on talents that just won't be used in PvE.
I'll add some of this, as well as a consensus PvP spec, when I get a chance.
Ok, it's working for me now.
Spec looks ok, again, it's the extra points in Prot that are unnecessary in PvE that could boost your DPS by another 2-3% - not a great deal in the long run, but it looks nicer.
I agree with laitaro - Pursuit of Justice isn't going to be as important in PvE. There's another 2% you could be getting too.
Why glyph for Seal of Command? Please tell me that's not a relic of a previous Ret build.....
Post by
417848
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
324117
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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